I know it is the third largest party after the Dems and the Reps, but they never got enough votes to form a government. I’d personally vote Libertarian if I got US citizenship.
Here in Hungary, there is a stereotype that Libertarian views are the most popular among people in IT. How is it in the US, does this stereotype exist there too that being into computers and technology is a sign of Libertarianism?
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>Libertarian views are the most popular among people in IT.
What? No idea where that came from.
>How is it in the US, does this stereotype exist there too that being into computers and technology is a sign of Libertarianism?
No, not at all. The stereotype here is that libertarians are Republicans who like weed.
I know some libertarians. They’re relatively popular in New Hampshire. I personally am not a fan. The core philosophy is basically “everyone is responsible for themselves so leave each other alone”. This just isn’t really compatible with a functioning society.
Most of my friends who were libertarians became Trump supporters or even hardcore right wing white nationalists (a little bit uncomfortable for me as a black guy). I am personally sympathetic to some libertarian beliefs such as a smaller less intrusive government and a government that leaves businesses alone for the most part. However, from my perspective libertarians are passionate about some of the strangest issues like legal prostitution, anti driver’s licenses, auditing the fed and so on. I just think they tend to be weirdos who can’t relate to other people very well and they are too dovish on foreign policy for me as well.
Not at all popular. I know a couple people who vote libertarian but they’re few and far between.
The only time I hear about libertarians is as the butt of a joke.
I voted for the Libertarian candidate in 2016, Gary Johnson.
Before any Redditor bashes or blames me for things, note that my state, NJ, is solidly blue and is not a “battleground” state. My vote didn’t stop Hillary from winning NJ’s electoral votes and didn’t help Trump win either.
I may have voted differently if I felt my vote really meant something in 2016.
I wouldn’t be friends with one. Their “everyone for themselves” world view is pretty indicative of a narrow world view and total lack of empathy.
1. The libertarian party is just not a major player. Its vote totals are miniscule, and the party organization is completely nuts. If you have libertarian views, it’s unlikely you vote for this party.
2. Libertarian politics just aren’t as salient in US politics as they are in much of central & eastern Europe. There was a significant faction of the GOP that catered to them, but the post-2016 GOP has basically purged them…most of them have therefore had to change their views (usually in a more nationalistic & conspiratorial direction) and/or their party preferences. By and large we’re talking about people who now swing between the two major parties rather than voting for their own.
As for IT, not at all. Consistently out of the STEM fields, IT & Software Development lean heavily to the left, while engineers are about evenly divided.
I remember the software engineering bro into libertarianism stereotype used to be stronger. Anyone who’s been around reddit long enough when it was a more tech focused website will remember when it had a huge hard on for Ron Paul. Back then it was like atheism, software engineering, smoking weed, libertarianism.
I only know a couple of libertarians left over. Yeah, one is really into smoking pot.
There are many libertarians or those with libertarian views active in the Republican Party. I’m guessing because they see it is a greater likelihood of getting elected and instituting their policies.
But keep in mind our politics are far deeper than just a presidential race. There are factions of the GOP, and libertarianism is one of them. Hell, even the Democrats have a slice of libertarianism. Take New Hampshire, for example.
I consider myself a Libertarian in the sense that the government is currently ridiculously overbearing and intrusive into it’s citizens lives. It absolutely needs to stop and is largely responsible for the degradation of America as a whole.
Anyone affiliated with the Libertarian Party is just a Republican wearing yellow.
You don’t “form a government” here.
So the Libertarian Party isn’t really all that popular and has historically been somewhere disaffected Republicans can go. The national party tends to be filled with kooks of various flavors who can’t agree on anything. It might be the 3rd most popular party but there isn’t a single elected Libertarian at the national level and very few in any of the states.
Some libertarian values have broad sympathy on both the left and/or the right but that almost never translates into votes for the party itself.
To answer your question, I’ve known a handful of people who vote libertarian as a protest vote in certain races. Usually when they despise both major party candidates but I’d never call them dyed in the wool libertarians.
Most of my friends and family didn’t even know what a libertarian is until they watched tiger king. More than one conservative I know said they intentionally stay as far away as possible because based on the name they assumed it was an offshoot of the democratic -liberal- party.
The Libertarian party is a joke. The only reason any votes for the is as a protest vote. The only times I’ve voted for them was for president in 2016 or when there isn’t a Democrat running in a local election.
A couple of the dumbest people I know consider themselves libertarian.
It’s not very popular overall.
Among my friends, we tend to think of them as hopelessly naïve people who believe in fairy tales about a neat and tidy version of humanity that cannot and does not exist.
The overwhelming majority of libertarians are white men because that’s the population that has the privilege to look at the world and think “everything would be great if the government would just butt out of things and let markets decide everything.” In my experience there is a lot of overlap between engineers and libertarians in the US, at least in part because the profession is heavily white and male.
I see more and more people identifying as libertarian but voting as either democrat or republican. In the US third parties are kind of viewed as “can’t win” basically if you vote for an independent candidate it’s seen to some people as “wasting your vote” but for me it’s the only option since I dislike both candidates
Libertarian as a principle is very common. The Libertarian party is mostly a protest vote.
Socialism is the same. A lot of people like some socialist ideas but there is no serious Socialist party.
As a libertarian I’d never vote for the Libertarian Party, honestly.
Well, maybe depending on the specific person, but the party itself is fucking batshit.
I never get tired of watching people mischaracterize libertarianism based off of extremists and echo-chamber talking points though so that’s neat.
Many people have libertarian ideas, few people actually vote for the party
I don’t know any Libertarians.
I’m the closest thing to a Libertarian among my friends and family, even identifying as one for over ten years. Then I met some actual Libertarians and found that I am definitely not one. No, I’ve never voted for a Libertarian candidate.
There was a while where a lot of republicans I knew in college would describe themselves as “Republican/Libertarian” basically as a way of saying, “Yeah I voted for Romney, but in like, a smart guy way.” Never fooled anyone.
1. Not at all popular. Libertarians are often either pitied as naive or avoided as sociopaths.
2. I know of some people that protest voted for them, but almost no one that seriously wanted them to win.
3. You don’t “form a government” here. We don’t have a parliament. Coalition building is something that happens before the ballot box here, not after. This is why libertarians do not matter. By isolating themselves from the big two (which are both incredibly internally diverse), they keep themselves out of the massive fundraising engines they have and demonstrate that they can’t play well with others.
4. IT and libertarians have a link, but not in the corporate world. I work in tech in a major hub, and I can’t think of many coworkers who fit that bill these days. One of the few who did went off to found one of the largest crypto exchanges, and that man was undoubtedly a sociopath. I can’t begin to describe the callous disregard he had for the well-being of others. He was libertarian because he didn’t want the government to be able to stop his “fun.” That’s a common theme among tech libertarians from what I’ve seen: start at corporate, hate having to play nice with others, go off to found a startup where your assholery can be unfettered.
I voted for them when I was fresh out of college in 2012, full of piss and vinegar and ready to take on the world.
I’m pretty far to the left these days, as are most of my friends. Most of my family is pretty far to the right. None of us vote libertarian as a general rule, although occasionally a candidate might pop up for a local office that makes sense.
I’ve met plenty of people who say their libertarians, only one seemed to support the libertarian party. The guy is a bit of a nut and you really couldn’t debate politics with him because somehow it’d devolve into him saying that we should kill poor people. The rest voted Republican, except this one guy who didn’t vote at all. Also met one who tried to run for mayor, he unsurprisingly didn’t win since he was a college student. Don’t know anything about a stereotype about them being in IT, I’ve always heard that it was business majors in college, which does apply to the nut I mentioned earlier. Most of the self identified libertarians I met were from small towns who were a mix of farmers, roughnecks, and some other form of physical labourers. I didn’t meet the business types until college.
[They took over a tiny town in New Hampshire once](https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/08/30/libertarians-took-control-of-this-small-town-it-didnt-end-well/), which then promptly had its first 2 murders in its history, and also got overrun with bears (which wasn’t an issue before either)
Even most libertarians think the so-called “Libertarian Party” is batshit.
The libertarian party has a top gear meme that describes it quite well, with the “this is brilliant but I like this better” one, with “actual productive libertarian policies’ being the “brilliant” and “legalizing weed” as the “I like this better”.
If they didn’t perpetually run on the legalizing weed headline, they could probably get a decent vote here, but when that’s all their focused on, that’s all they’re known for.
> but they never got enough votes to form a government.
That’s not how our elections or government works, at all.
> I’d personally vote Libertarian if I got US citizenship.
>
I’d hope you’d learn what that actually means first. Fortunately, [our path to citizenship covers civics.](https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/find-study-materials-and-resources/study-for-the-test)
> Here in Hungary, there is a stereotype that Libertarian views are the most popular among people in IT.
Where does this stereotype come from?
That’s a fairly small group of people. Our tech sector is roughly 5m out of 330 million people…or about 1.5% of people in general. And that means that the sector is divided up into people who support 3 different parties….so even if the (L) voters were HALF of tech workers that’s still less than 1% of Americans.
> does this stereotype exist there too that being into computers and technology is a sign of Libertarianism?
Not in my experience.
The party is not popular. They took less than 1% of the vote in my state’s 2022 governor’s race. A party who claims a central principal of less government and less organization has a really hard time with things like raising money and running a campaign. Why would I want these people running a government?
It’s a fringe party. I usually only hear about them as the butt of a joke.
A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: Author Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling on the Free State Project – Vox
[https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling]
Not at all.
The Libertarian Party has become a joke, honestly. It’s filled with weirdos and edgelords who treat everything like it’s all a big joke, but then can’t understand why nobody takes them seriously.
The way the voting works here, voting third party is pointless or actively harmful.
I have known a couple of people who identified as Libertarian, but when general elections come around they vote for a Republican or a Democrat.
The party itself is not popular with people I know
I do know a lot of people who will have a streak of libertarianism here and there but wouldn’t vote for the party (beyond a protest vote against the two main candidates for say President)
I have a crazy cousin who is a libertarian. He’s a pain in the ass to talk to.
It was more popular, but many people claiming to be libertarians went bat shit crazy and seem to support anti-libertatian policies.
Only weird dudes that wear badly fitted suits and a yellow tie.
It’s not popular at all. People I know that once claimed to be Libertarian are now just Republicans.
Not popular. Libertarians are mostly old white men because the only thing they have to worry about are taxes and gun laws. I have one uncle who pretends to be libertarian but is actually conservative, which is my stereotype of most libertarians.
[r/exlibertarian](https://old.reddit.com/r/exlibertarian/)
“Libertarian” is usually used by closeted republicans because they’re ashamed to support the GOP.
My impression (coming from a large, politically liberal city) is that many self-proclaimed Libertarians are younger white men who know that identifying as a Republican is a surefire way to get the majority of women to swipe left.
As an actual poll worker, my real-life observation is that in each election about 10-12 of the 900+ registered voters in my precinct are registered Libertarians, and (without fail) they are always white men in their 20s and 30s, usually unmarried. They have good jobs (this is a fairly affluent neighborhood), no children in school, no partners needing reproductive care, no racial or religious affiliation with any historically disadvantaged group, and they themselves are young and healthy. Of course these guys want small government! Everything is going great for them.
To me, the funniest punctuation of this was when one guy got furious that he was still registered as an (L) and couldn’t vote in the Democratic primary (which largely determines mayor, city council, district attorney, etc.), and asked if he was being disenfranchised (no, he just never completed the registration). He swore he changed his affiliation to (D) about six months earlier… all while holding his infant daughter.
Every ‘libertarian’ I know uses that word after describing political beliefs that are outright Fascism.
The libertarian party base consists of exactly 3 demographics:
1: 16 to 22-year-old boys and young men who don’t know anything about politics or economics
2: Republicans who like weed
3: Comically wealthy Silicon Valley technocrats (most of these end up as Republicans later, when they realize that the libertarian party doesn’t get anything done)